Two weeks in, FOX has gone back on this decision, citing their inability to hide the number of fans and followers each contestant had as a factor in the move to discontinue contestants' profiles.

Why is this a crucial question, anyway? Is there anything about being able to see a contestants' number of followers and fans that makes the competition less fair? Does the predictive power of followers affect the outcome of the show? Does this predictive power even exist?

Let's concern ourselves right now with that last question: What is the predictive power of followers? In other words... is the contestant with the most followers most likely to win the competition?

If we were to try to predict the outcome of American Idol using Zócalo Group's Digital Footprint Index [PDF], we'd take into account three different dimensions of the online conversation around each contestant:

• Height - The sheer number of blog posts, forum conversations, status updates and pieces of multimedia connected to the person, from all sources - official and unofficial.
  
  
• Width - The level of engagement and interaction with this stuff. Followers and fans would come in here, as would views, comments and sharing.
  
  
• Depth - The tone and content of these conversations. Do people love or hate the contestant? Do they think someone is "pitchy, dawg," or maybe that they've got a Kevin Covais thing going on? Interestingly, WhatNotToSing.com has built an entire database around the potentially predictive nature of online sentiment alone.
  

From a Zócalo perspective, these indicators only create a comprehensive picture of the online conversation when taken together and compared across contestant. Of course, using that picture to predict the outcome of American Idol would require two major assumptions:

1. That online conversations are an accurate representation of all conversations - and that there is nothing distinct or disproportionate about a contestant's digital footprint as opposed to his or her overall cultural footprint.
   
   
2. That a bigger or "better" footprint (digital or cultural), will necessarily translate into more votes.
   

We have reason to believe that the first assumption is true in many cases. The second one would probably need to be tested. As for the question of whether revealing contestants' follower counts would compromise the integrity of the show... when was the last time American Idol had any integrity to preserve?




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Earlier this morning, we announced the product of a joint analysis with M/A/R/C Research that scores brands based upon the volume of positive recommendations versus negative recommendations. The result is the Recommendation Index.

To kick off the announcement, we'd like to invite everyone to a webinar next week, Monday Dec. 14th at 2:00 CT. Registration is live at www.recommendationindex.com.

Unlike previous metrics that only ask "Would you recommend this brand?" the Recommendation Index evolves the measurement to determine why, where and how often people recommend individual brands as well as how each brand compares to the overall category.

Each quarter, the report will focus on a different industry segment, providing an overall ranking of both positively and negatively recommended brands - as well as how and why people talk about them - both over time and against competitors.

By knowing the words and phrases with which people are making recommendations in a category, it becomes possible to deliberately drive and amplify those qualities that matter most to consumers. The Recommendation Index^SM provides a significant competitive advantage in intentionally shaping and tracking how you are being recommended. The result of which is a direct relationship between your volume of recommendations and its impact on sales.

Full details of the report are available on our site, and the presentation will be posted for those unable to join us for the webinar.

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If you pay much attention to the marketing industry's trends, you no doubt have observed the rapid emergence of social media as a marketing communications channel.  If you're a marketer, you know social media and driving intentional, positive online conversation about your brand is important, and needs to be part of your marketing mix.  But, like any emerging discipline, it can be hard to know how best to "use" social media and, importantly, assess whether your efforts are wildly successful, a complete waste of time, effort and money, or somewhere in the middle.

Don't worry, the problem isn't you.  It's the metric, or rather, up until now, the lack thereof.  While we're learning each day about the growing popularity, pervasiveness and influence of social media, we're also working to figure out the best performance metrics to measure its impact.  And we're getting better every day.

Established, accepted metrics are critical in any industry because they both declare a benchmark for relative performance and focus resources around what's important.  In essence, they put a value on what's valuable.  You are what you measure.  Mutual Fund managers have the Annualized Rate of Return, CEO's have EBITA and enterprise value, Network Television Executives have audience ratings, and so on.  Heck, even NFL head coaches have performance metrics; net points scored per game, and games won over a season (Are you listening, Lovie Smith?).  The important thing is that once performance metrics are established and accepted for a discipline, all energy then gets focused on gaming the metric.  And that's a good thing.

The recent announcement of Zócalo Group's Digital Footprint Index is a giant step (pun not intended) in the right direction.  On an overall basis, the DFI quantifies, at a given point in time, the overall volume of a brand's earned online presence.  The DFI's key components, Height (amount of brand conversation), Width (how widely those conversations are shared) and Depth (the tone and sentiment of the brand's conversation) serve to put an important stake in the ground for industry.  But does the DFI put a value on what's valuable?  You be the judge.  For any brand (and its competitors), wouldn't you want to know:

•    How much that brand is being talked about in earned conversation?
•    If those brand conversations are being passed along?
•    If those brand conversations are positive or negative, on message or off?

So with the Digital Footprint Index established, the imperative becomes clear.  We need to game the metrics.  We need to create more earned conversation for the brand, work to have those conversations more widely shared, and ensure those conversations are increasingly positive and intentional.  Those are pretty good metrics to game.

We know the debate about what social media metrics are most appropriate is long from over and rightly so; with new channels for digital conversation being brought forth all the time, a metric is only as good as its ability to quantify all that's relevant and valuable.  But the Digital Footprint Index is a quantum leap (pun intended) from what has been previously available and, we hope, spurs even more discussion around this subject.
 
To paraphrase Albert Einstein, "Sometimes what counts can't be counted." For those of us who endeavor to use social media to drive brand conversation and recommendations, we're getting closer to the day when we'll have agreement on both what and how to count.  And when that day arrives, there will likely be no formal celebration or even recognition of that agreement, because we'll all be too busy that day, working to game those metrics.



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